It appears the Obama Administration is putting the kabosh on the Keystone XL pipeline, at least, that’s the early word. Republicans are gonna howl like stuck pigs, seeing as how the oil industry has bought their support, er, invested $12 million in contributions to friendly Congress critters.

They’re also gonna make up all sorts of nonsense about how this is gonna kill tens of thousands of jobs, a blatant lie.

My guess is that Obama’s pledge to oppose the Keystone XL boondoggle is worth as much as his pledge to close Gitmo. It gives the “progressive” Democrats a bit of encouragement to vote for him but once he’s elected it will be forgotten due to some other “priority” of the 1%.

Charles, you are way off base on this critique. Although one of President Obama’s promises, goals, items in his early agenda was to close Gitmo, bring all these ‘terrorists’ to the US and even put them in a brand new prison with super security in IL so we could try them in courts on U.S. soil…guess what. The ignorant, hate-filled Congress said NO, and again NO, and he could not veto their NOs. And that Pipeline would negatively effect our states from the Canadian border to the Gulf and the jobs that it would create would only be temporary until it was completed. And they had NO ACTUAL firm plan in place. The BIG OIL people had paid millions toward this mess. And he could not give them a blank check! I am sure our Senators and my Congressman will howl the most. Their biggest ‘contributors’ are from Big Oil, Big Coal, the Coal Ash Association, etc.

Charles tends to present the view that nothing Obama does is ever good enough, no matter what. I’ve accused him of being a conservative troll trying to bait liberals, of the PUMA or Ronbot or Naderite breed. He denies it. Whatever. The idea that Obama is wholly to blame for not closing GITMO is ridiculous and presumes we’re all ignorant of that body known as the U.S. Congress, which has done things like use its spending oversight authority to prevent the White House from financing trials of GITMO detainees on U.S. turf and to block the federal governemnt’s purchase of an Illinois state prison that was supposed to house GITMO prisoners awaiting trial. They’ve also made it virtually impossible to release GITMO prisoners to other countries.

But Charles likes to throw the GITMO thing out as “broken promise! Obama BAD!” Whine whine twang twang. See how many Republican presidents close GITMO. Or whichever favorite candidate Charles supports, Ron Paul or Ralph Nader, I don’t have a fucking clue. Of course, they’d have to get elected first.

George W Bush left a huge mess, and a bunch of phony liberals are blaming Obama for getting dirty trying to clean it up. No patience for that nonsense, not when we’re looking at Teanut rule.

Yes, SB, I don’t usually want to argue just for argument’s sake, but when I have FACTS to back up my answers to half-baked critique and/or rumors, assumptions and lies about my President, I just can’t resist. He has accomplished over 244 goals he set during his 2008 Campaign. I have a List. And I have started working full-time for his re-election, a campaign that I feel will be much more fun than the first one.

ANYONE delusional enough to think Obama (or even Superman himself) could undo EIGHT years’ worth of Shrub rule in less than FOUR years, even with a likeminded Congress, is smoking some pretty powerful shit. What W left us with, if Congress was indeed with us, would take 16 years to reverse. Since Congress is NOT with us: good luck, everybody.

NPR reported on “All Things Considered” that the down vote by the WH was procedural in nature, due to a glitch in the siting plan (Nebraska will not allow the pipeline to go under the Ogalalla Aquifer).

Egg-zactly, Shirt! BINGO! The Canadian Government apparently approved this scheme to risk major damage to the U.S. environment after seeing how much destruction was caused by BIG OIL within the States of Alaska AND our Gulf Coast. It would cost billions less to run this pipeline to the Northwest CANADIAN Coast! And the simple fact is that the major Oil Companies, active on the GULF Coast have refused to build NEW refineries there, even before Katrina and long before the BP disaster. I love to wake up in the morning when Barack Obama is President. He has so many reasons not mentioned, to reject this massive disaster.

There’s also the history of exporting unfinished and/or extractive goods, borne out by colonizers everywhere: It doesn’t pay much when they’re there, and doesn’t pay at all when they run out.

In this case I guess either some sucker wishes to pay way too much to refine it elsewhere, or refining such poor quality oil is a low-reward enterprise for the financial and other risks that Canada doesn’t want to do it.

I hope it sticks, I really do. I read that Obama blamed the “arbitrary deadline” that Boehner placed on him during last year’s payroll tax debate. During the payroll tax debate we knew that the Republicans were setting Obama up and setting up an election year vote. But Obama doesn’t like to be pushed around.

Keystone isn’t gone. And there is going to be a lot of false info flying around out there, the Fox Bimbos are going to talking about “tens of thousands of jobs” that Obama just turned down and the Rick Berman front groups are gonna gear up and the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity are going to be hitting the road with their astroturf rallies.

So, roll up your sleeves and get to work, people. It’s going to be a brutal year.

Yes, SB, and it is up to us to help him win re-election in this RED neck State of Hate. WE are already ON IT, have hundreds of dedicated VOLs working every day, encouraging folks to get involved, share their stories of the last three years in this State now owned by the TEA Party nuts and a Governor who keeps supporting their hate-filled bills, while creating NO JOBS. If anyone on this blog wants to know how to help, let me know. We have contacted thousands of voters already. And we won’t stop until November 6th when the polls close!

I’m late to this party but I guess I might as well come out as a conservative troll a la Charles because I thought the exact same thing when I heard the Keystone announcement-that BHO could score a few points with the progressives on a rather low level conflict. In re: GITMO, etc I don’t lay ALL the blame on him for failure to close it but unless my reality testing is impaired I have seen him fold up like a lawn chair on issue after issue that required any semblance of commitment to progressive causes. Barack Obama is a neoliberal tied to the oligarchs. Sue me. Maybe Michelle Malkin wiill invite me over to her blog.

Well you are welcome to visit Michelle Malkin all you want, but don’t do it because you think I’m showing you the door! :-)

Yes, Obama has folded like a lawn chair plenty, and I’ve certainly been critical of not just the president but other Democrats who have done likewise. Capitulating on the Bush tax cuts was all Obama. But the reality is, we don’t have a strong progressive who is electable who isn’t beholden to the same special interests as everyone else. The reality is, it takes tens of millions of dollars to get elected to high office in this country. The reality is, this situation will only get worse, thanks to our Supreme Court which has some radical players on it who have opened the floodgates to corporate influence and power. The reality is, Dennis Kucinich will never be president. Never. Never ever. The reality is, Fox News and right wing misinformation sway the voters way more than wonky liberals like Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann.

I wouldn’t call Obama a neoliberal, but I do call him a pragmatist. He gets done what he think he can get done. He spent most of his political capital on healthcare reform. Was that the smart choice? Maybe, I don’t know. It’s one we’re stuck with, though. And if he loses re-election Romney will sign legislation repealing it. And how long will it be before any U.S. president tackles our dysfunctional healthcare system? Decades. Generations. If ever.

Is Obama tied to the oligarchs? Of course. They all are. Hell, WE all are. We have no choice, short of living off the grid in a yurt.

WOW, these are great new labels put on our President. I do agree he hasn’t kept EVERY campaign promise, but a record of 244+ is a good number, in 3 years with no help from the yellow dogs, the “progressives” and certainly not the GOP, corrupted by the TEA bag nuts.
First with his promise to address the horror that WAS health care in this country, his HCR ACT has created thousands of NEW JOBS, helped 26 million college students have access to affordable health care via their parents’ plan. His DoJ has prosecuted hundreds of scam artists who bilked Medicare patients out of
millions for ‘electric wheelchairs’, phony ‘drug plans’ and more. Some were convicted, fined thousands and are now in JAIL. (Check out Florida!) Many new free benefits were created for Medicare/Medicaid patients without Co-pays. For the first time, I received FREE complete mammograms this past summer. I marched in the streets for ANY Plan this President could get passed that would help people who could not afford ANY basic health care.
I could list the next 10 important victories Obama can celebrate but I don’t have room here…Ending the BUSH WAR and killing bin Laden are up there, tho!

I like yurts. But what I want to know is this-What good are chickens without a rooster?

MLG Wilson and SB I stipulate I am aware that ideological purity is a concept not a reality but I find it hard to defend BHO. While not disputing your assertions on healthcare the Public Option was jettisoned by the White House with hardly a whimper leaving the spoils (if the act is ever fully implemented) to the insurance industry. GITMO encompasses more than the physical presence of the facility. There’s that little matter of habeas corpus. Also, prior to “The Arab Spring” I don’t think the practice of extraordinary rendition vis a vis Egypt had been ended and recently the “indefinite Detention” portion of the defense authorization bill was addressed with the caveat “serious concerns.” As for the DOJ. Why isn’t Wall Street in jail? I mean these are not trivial matters. At what point do progressives say “Enough”?

But what I want to know is this-What good are chickens without a rooster?

Eggs. You can get eggs from chickens without a rooster.

You must have heard that Nashville’s chicken-coop bill passed. We’re allowed to have up to 6 chickens, for egg production only (no slaughtering) and no roosters. I want some fresh eggs but Mr. Beale says NO. Sigh.

…the Public Option was jettisoned by the White House with hardly a whimper leaving the spoils…

Not entirely true. I mean yes, the public option got dumped, and I was very pissed off at the time (still am). But here’s the thing: it was not going to pass! It just wasn’t going to happen! People were fighting for it, not just activists but some Dems in Congress and whatnot but there were too many people against it, Democrats as well as Republicans. The public was too scared and misinformed, the astroturfers were organizing anti-healthcare reform rallies where congressmen were being hung in effigy. Roll back the fucking tape and remember what that whole spring and summer were like. Under that scenario it just WAS NOT going to happen. And we could have let that one thing completely sink the entire healthcare reform bill, or we could pass what we got and wait a few years and amend it when people actually lived with the legislation and learned it didn’t lead to death panels and whatnot.

And here’s the thing, liberals can get all upset about the public option — fine, I was not pleased either, I wrote about it, I called my Congresspeople, I did all that crap, I thought maybe nothing might be better than something — but for crying out loud, get the fuck over it already. GET OVER IT. The upshot is we had a bunch of butt-hurt libs who decided to say “enough.” They decided to teach the Democrats a lesson in the midterms and we got the fucking Tea Party elected. Way to go, progressives! Now we can’t get federal judges in place, we can’t get most of Dodd-Frank implemented, we can’t get agencies funded so they can do their oversight, we can’t get people put in place to run the government because the damn Teanuts are obstructing everything. EVER-Y-THING. It’s not just the big stuff the GOP is obstructing, it’s the little nuts and bolts stuff, too.

We’re dealing with an opposition that is more interested in seeing a Democratic president fail than seeing the nation succeed at ANYTHING. This is what we got by being so upset that Obama isn’t the perfect progressive President we all wanted. Well, grow up.

I mean, God. I’m not saying he’s perfect. The whole civil liberties thing is a huge problem for me, of course. But our troops are out of Iraq and we are winding down in Afghanistan and I don’t think Obama will have us bombing Iran and North Korea the way those trigger happy Republicans have been itching to do since Bush was president.

That’s just how I see it. You want “enough”? There will never be enough. Progressives will never be happy. We’re always complaining about something. We’re like the Jewish mother of politics. Hey, it’s good to have high standards but once in a while you need to be happy for five fucking minutes.

Yeah, Randy. Name-calling and labeling never work. I have come to accept that the term ‘progressive’ does not adequately describe those who CLAIM they worked for and voted for President Obama. I would guess that 99% of those who claim that they voted for Obama but after 3 years of NOT supporting him, they are dropping their support…are just phony. And a good number are still pissed ‘Hillary Didn’t Win’, or he is 1/2 Black’ blah blah. I will confirm right now that I am an avowed LIBERAL Democrat who believes in the description of ‘liberal’ from JFK. And those who are now whining…yeah, get on the bus or shut up.

To be fair to Randy and the rest of us who have criticized Obama, the criticism IS legitimate and actually, Obama asked for it. I mean, literally he asked for it. He said — was it his inauguration speech, or maybe an interview, can’t remember — he said, I welcome your criticism. Hold my feet to the fire, keep me accountable. And that’s what we have done, and when you have a bunch of conservaDems in office, you have to make a lot of noise when they don’t live up to your expectations of the party. If they’re just going to be Republi-Lite that doesn’t help anyone.

So I think it’s always valid to criticize the people we’ve elected — constructively. And people are right to be disappointed they didn’t get everything that was promised. But at the same time, reality check, people. We’ve done a lot considering the hand we’ve been dealt. And then also: we keep saying we want the Dems to have a spine, but they won’t if we don’t show them we’ve got their back when they do something right.

Obama’s gonna get slammed on this Keystone thing, so we need to show a lot of love now to make sure he sticks to this decision. If we just say,”aww you’re just a phony, you don’t mean it,” then the path of least political resistance will be to cut some deal and take this issue off the table before the campaign heats up.

@Mary Wilson at 2;28.
Blog commenting forums are intriguing places. I don’t know that you and I have “conversed” previous to this thread yet you want to attack me and question my liberal credentials? I’ll ride whatever frking bus suits me Miss “Avowed Liberal” (for someone that disdains labels sure sounds like a brand to me). I have nothing to prove to you or anyone else. If you’re running a get out the vote effort for BHO you might want to brush up on your people skills.